3456 



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standard Authors' 
Booklets 




NUMBER THREE PRICE, TEN CENTS 

Published by 

Croscup & Sterling Company 

i 3 5 Fifth Avenue, New York 




HENRY FIELDING. 
(1707-1754.) 



Stanbarb Hutbors' Booklets. 



Henry Fielding 



BY 



J. WALKER McSPADDEN 




>I«LC«1>S T X A-T-SD -, 



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NEW YORK 

CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY 

Publishers 



GONC3RESS, j 
r„#c Copies R£CS'.ved| 

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Copyright 1902, by 
CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY 



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CONTENTS 



HENRY FIELDING: 

I. The Time .... 
II. The Man .... 

III. The Playwright . 

IV. The Novelist 
V. Miscellaneous Writings . 

VI. Friends and Contemporaries 
The Need of a Complete Fielding 
First Complete Edition of his Works 27 
List of Fielding's Writings . . -30 



7 
9 
13 
15 
20 
22 
26 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



Portrait of Fielding 

Anne Oldfield 

Mrs. Clive (ne'e Raftor) . " 

Front of New Theatre in the 
Haymarket .... " 

Sharpham House, Fielding's 
Birthplace .... '« 

Front of Drury Lane Theatre " 

William Ernest Henley, LL.D. " 

Table of Fielding's Contemporaries 



Frontispiece 

facing page 7 

" " 9 

" " 13 



24 
26 

33 




MRS. OLDFIELD. 
See pp. 13 and 14. 





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Henry Fielding 




I. The Time 

ENRY FIELDING is the Cervantes 
of Eighteenth Century England. 
With his deep irony and trenchant 
wit he stormed the castles of sen- 
timentalism and opened the way for 
worthier, saner structures. His work must be 
judged not by its surface, but by its inner cur- 
rents and the influence upon subsequent lit- 
erary thought. 

With the restoration of Charles II to the 
throne in 1660, England threw off the sedate 
life of the Puritans and plunged into a wild 
riot of merriment and debauch. The litera- 
ture reflected the popular trend; and the con- 
cluding years of the seventeenth century pro- 
duced novels and plays of anything but edifying 
character. The stage had deteriorated and 
palled upon the public taste, which turned for 
a season to foreign romances of adventure and 
intrigue — books often sunk in a mire of moral 
filth though screened by court tinsel and 
pageantry. 

Then came Swift with his satires, " Tale of 
a Tub " and " Gulliver's Travels," and Defoe 



8 Henry Fielding 

with his sustained narrative " Robinson Cru- 
soe." These marked a transition. The begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century found a field 
large and inviting for a new type of fiction. 

To Richardson — that name called up in any 
survey of Fielding — belongs credit for the 
founding of a new school : the novel of char- 
acter and manners, which is the prototype of 
modern fiction. In his own words, he wished 
to turn the minds of young persons " into a 
course of reading different from the pomp and 
parade of romance writing." Above all things, 
he desired to combat the unhealthful ten- 
dency of foreign fiction and ground his plots 
sternly upon moral conduct. In " Pamela, or 
Virtue Rewarded," his heroine is made to un- 
dergo severe temptation and withstand many 
assaults upon her chastity; and finally to re- 
claim her libertine lover through the very force 
of her steadfastness. In " Clarissa Harlowe," 
the heroine is depicted as falling a prey to 
circumstance, but still displaying the dignity 
of a resistant virtue. 

All this was very well for the morals of 
the time; but Richardson came near erring 
through excess of zeal. In his eagerness to 
point the only safe path for virtue, he un- 
deniably revealed scenes of such glaring real- 
ism as to affect unfavorably many younger 
minds particularly susceptible to such influ- 
ence. He reminds us of Du Maurier's sketch 
in " Punch," where the old lady says to her 
grandson : " You surely did not climb into the 
bathtub with your clothes on ! " To which the 
young hopeful replies : " No, but I will do it." 




MRS. CLIVE. 
See p. 14. 



The Man 9 

Upon this defect of morbid sentimentalism 
one man looked — smiled — and winked sol- 
emnly. That man was Henry Fielding — wit, 
rake, man-about-town, lawyer, dramatist, and 
henceforth novelist. Let us glance back a 
moment at this humorist's antecedents and 
life. 



II. The Man 




HENRY FIELDING could boast a 
long line of illustrious ancestors, 
says Austin Dobson. There was a 
Sir William Feilding (so spelled) 
killed at Tewkesbury, and a Sir 
Everard who had commanded at Stoke. An- 
other Sir William was created Earl of Den- 
bigh and fell fighting for King Charles. Of 
his two sons, the elder was a Parliamentarian, 
and the younger was raised to the peerage of 
Ireland. From the younger branch Henry di- 
rectly descended, being of the fourth genera- 
tion. Edmund Fielding, his father, had served 
with distinction in the army under Marl- 
borough. About the age of thirty he left the 
service with the rank of lieutenant and married 
Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, of Sharp- 
ham Park, Somerset, a Judge of the King's 
Bench. Henry was the eldest of five children 
resulting from this union. 

The author of "Tom Jones" was born at 



io Henry Fielding 

Sharpham Park, on the 22d of April, 1707. 
When but two or three years old his parents 
removed to East Stour, Dorsetshire, and it is 
there that Henry's boyhood was passed. His 
first schooling was had under a private tutor. 
Later he went to Eton, where he must have 
known William Pitt, Henry Fox, George Lyt- 
telton and Gilbert West. From Eton he went 
to Leyden University, but remittances of the 
family allowance presently failing, he was 
forced to return to London and endeavor to 
make his own livelihood. He was now in his 
twentieth year. 

Fielding had been educated with a view of 
becoming a lawyer, but in London he early 
decided to give up that profession and at- 
tempt to live by his wits. As he himself 
jocosely remarked, " I must be either a hack- 
ney coachman or a hackney-writer." He 
therefore turned to writing plays, several of 
which were produced with some success by 
the best actors and actresses of the time, such 
as Garrick and Mrs. Oldfield. Of these plays 
we shall take occasion to speak again later. 
The young author was now serving his ap- 
prenticeship and gradually acquiring more and 
more facility with his pen. As to his pecuniary 
success we cannot be so certain. But about 
the spring of 1735 he married a Miss Char- 
lotte Cradock, an attractive young woman, 
whom he seemed to have loved, and who was 
an heiress in her own right. He withdrew 
from London with her to his early home in 
Dorsetshire, where (according to some biog- 
raphers) he squandered her money and his 



^■.-.;,.- J .a.— ,-r T-rir 



The Man n 

asaa II III I ■ II II l«B^«— — ^M^M»^— — — 

own in riotous living and lavish entertaining — 
for he was always a man who lived largely 
and not always cautiously. Be that as it may, 
we find him again in London, in the succeed- 
ing year, when he became manager of the 
Haymarket Theatre. Shortly afterward he 
entered the Middle Temple as a student of 
law, but again his literary bent asserted itself, 
and in 1739 he began writing for the 
" Champion," a periodical of essays modeled 
along the lines of the " Tatler." The first of 
his novels, " Joseph Andrews," was published 
in 1742, to be followed at intervals by the three 
other books of the great quartette upon which 
his fame rests — " Jonathan Wild," " Tom 
Jones" and "Amelia," the last being com- 
pleted in 1751. 

Meanwhile he had eked out his living by 
editing other journals and by serving as a 
justice of the peace. In 1754, failing health 
obliged him to journey to Lisbon, where he 
died on the 8th of October in that year. 

In person Fielding was tall and large (says 
Keightley) being upwards of six feet high; 
and he seems to have attached much value to 
physical power, for he forms all his heroes 
after his own likeness. In consequence prob- 
ably of his formation, he appears to have had 
a high relish for animal enjoyments. But we 
have no proof that his life was otherwise than 
regular after his marriage. Even in his most 
licentious days he never lost his respect for 
religion and virtue. 

Says Taine : " Fielding protests on behalf of 
nature; and certainly to see his actions and 



12 Henry Fielding: 

his person, we might think him made ex- 
pressly for that: a robust, strongly-built man, 
above six feet, sanguine, with an excess of 
good humour and animal spirits, loyal, gen- 
erous, affectionate and brave, but impudent, 
extravagant, a drinker, a roysterer, ruined as 
it were by his heirloom, having seen the ups 
and downs of life, bespattered, but always 
jolly. . . . Force, activity, invention, ten- 
derness, all overflowed in him. He had a 
mother's fondness for his children, adored his 
wife, became almost mad when he lost her, 
found no other consolation than to weep with 
his maidservant, and ended by marrying that 
good and honest girl, that he might give a 
mother to his children; the last trait in the 
portrait of his valiant plebeian heart, quick in 
telling all, possessing no dislikes, but all the 
best parts of man except delicacy. We read 
his books as we drink a pure, wholesome and 
rough wine, which cheers and fortifies us, and 
which wants nothing but boquet" 




The Playwright 13 



III. The Playwright 



BALZAC, serving his apprenticeship 
in a Parisian garret, first turned his 
r""jj|S hand to writing " blood-and-thun- 
BjBj|]P der " novels, now carefully classi- 
fied — and avoided — as "Works of 
Youth." To the young man Fielding, cut off 
from the family allowance and facing life in 
London, the easiest path to literature, if not 
wealth, seemed to be the drama. In 1728 
there were not many theatres in London, but 
the two or three then open were destined to 
lasting fame by reason of the actors and plays 
produced. First, there was the old Opera 
House in the Haymarket, built in 1705 upon 
the site now occupied by Her Majesty's 
Theatre. Opposite it stood the New, or Little 
Theatre in the Haymarket. Then there was 
the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and finally, 
oldest of them all, came the Theatre-Royal in 
Drury Lane, where played Colley Cibber, 
Robert Wilks, Barton Booth and Mrs. Anne 
Oldfield. The following year, Goodman's 
Fields opened its doors, and here it was that 
Garrick first appeared. Covent Garden be- 
longs to a later year. 

The young Fielding was fortunate enough 
to secure the interest of Mrs. Oldfield, Wilks 
and Cibber in regard to his first play, " Love 
in Several Masques." It was put on at Drury 
Lane, with Mrs. Oldfield in the leading femi- 



14 Henry Fielding" 

nine role, and its success, in whatever degree, 
was probably due to her art and popularity. 
In another play, " The Lottery," presented 
three years later, he was again fortunate in 
enlisting the services of Miss Raftor, who 
was later to reach the heights of histrionic 
fame as Mrs. Clive. This splendid actress re- 
mained for several years a staunch friend of 
the young playwright, and undoubtedly con- 
tributed largely to his success. Later he had 
the advice and assistance of David Garrick. 
Fielding's dramatic lines had been cast in 
profitable places. For nearly ten years he 
wrote plays, chiefly in the burlesque or comic 
vein. One of his earliest biographers said 01 
them : " Though it must be acknowledged that 
in the whole collection there are few plays 
likely to make any considerable figure on the 
stage hereafter [this was in 1762], yet they 
are worthy of being preserved, being the works 
of a genius who in his wildest and most in- 
accurate productions yet occasionally displays 
the talent of a master. Though in the plan of 
his plays he is not always regular, yet he is 
often happy in diction and style; and in 
every group that he has exhibited there are 
to be seen particular delineations that will 
amply recompense the attention bestowed upon 
them." 

Perhaps his most enduring plays are " Tom 
Thumb," " Pasquin," " The Miser " and " The 
Wedding Day." Others, while receiving atten- 
tion at the time, relied for popularity upon 
their satire of contemporary events. Fielding 
the playwright began at twenty and ended at 



The Novelist 15 

thirty years. Fielding the novelist was the 
more experienced man of forty, writing not 
because pressed by want — as may have been 
the case in some of the plays — but because he 
had obtained a larger vision of life, and was 
called upon to set down what he saw — soberly, 
calmly, and with the pen of abiding genius. 



IV. The Novelist 



WE have already pictured Fielding 
as smiling over the sentimentalism 
of Richardson's " Pamela." It was 
this smile that led to the end of the 
playwriting and the beginning of the 
novel-making on the part of the humorist. 
Seized by an impulse to ridicule, he began 
"Joseph Andrews"; but it ended far above 
the bounds its author had set for it. Then 
came "Jonathan Wild" — still in a spirit of 
ridicule. Finally, with the appearance of 
"Tom Jones" and "Amelia," England awoke 
to the fact that she had another master 
novelist. 

JOSEPH ANDREWS 

The biting satire of " Joseph Andrews " lies 
in the situation. Joseph is made the brother 
of Richardson's virtuous Pamela, assailed in 
his turn by all the temptations which had 
caused her woe. But, in this case, a reversal 
of the sexes results in a broad burlesque. The 



1 6 Henry Fielding- 

story speedily grows beyond a parody, how- 
ever, and takes on a more dignified and inde- 
pendent interest. And at least two characters 
destined to immortality are produced, in the 
persons of Mrs. Slipslap and Parson Adams — 
who alone abundantly justify the existence of 
this book and absolve it from the weakness of 
a parody. Upon its title-page "Joseph An- 
drews " is declared to be " written in imitation 
of the manner of Cervantes," and indeed we 
can see many touches common to the Spanish 
writer, especially in the troubles and adven- 
tures of the well-meaning Parson. Like Cer- 
vantes, too, Fielding was applying vigorous 
weapons against a faulty condition. The 
" womanish " Richardson, being offended by 
an impure literature, had gone to an extreme 
of avoidance. With coarse laughter, Fielding 
represents the return swing of the pendulum, 
and his work is to influence a wholesome me- 
dium — not directly, but by suggestion. 

JONATHAN WILD 

"'Jonathan Wild/" says Coleridge, "is as- 
suredly the best of all the fictions in which a 
villain is throughout the prominent character." 
Again we have a satire by reversion — this time, 
not of the sexes, but of types. Instead of 
choosing a hero of integrity and honor, the 
author deliberately holds up a villain to be 
admired. The satire is in no way directed 
against genuine worth — as the author is care- 
ful to explain — but against the conventionality 
of romance where there is always "a virtuous 



The Novelist 17 

and gallant hero, a wicked monster his oppo- 
site, and a pretty girl who finds a champion." 
Thackeray, whom we have just quoted, con- 
tinues : " In that strange apologue [of " Jona- 
than Wild "] the author takes for a hero the 
greatest rascal, coward, traitor, tyrant, hypo- 
crite, that his wit and experience, both large 
in this matter, could enable him to devise or 
depict: he accompanies this villain through all 
the actions of his life, with a grinning defer- 
ence and a wonderful mock respect; and does 
not leave him until he is dangling at the gal- 
lows, when the satirist makes him a low bow 
and wishes the scoundrel good-day." 



TOM JONES 

Once more we see the influence of Cervantes 
in " Tom Jones," the classic upon which Field- 
ing's larger fame rests. " Like ' Don Quixote/ " 
says Dobson, " ' Tom Jones ' is the precursor 
of a new order of things — the earliest and 
freshest expression of a new departure in art. 
But while ' Tom Jones ' is to the full as amus- 
ing as ' Don Quixote/ it has the advantage of 
a greatly superior plan, and an interest more 
skillfully sustained. The incidents which in 
Cervantes simply succeed each other like the 
scenes in a panorama are, in ' Tom Jones/ but 
parts of an organized and carefully-arranged 
procession towards a foreseen conclusion." 
One of the chief marvels of this story is its 
plot — always kept well in hand, however intri- 
cate. Each scene, no matter how apparently 



1 8 Henry Fielding 

trivial, has been placed there with reference 
to some other episode. The wonder of it all 
is seen after the story is ended — if the reader 
do but look back at the many finely joined 
parts of the superstructure. 

The other great claim for this novel — and 
perhaps the chiefest — is its picture of life and 
manners. Fielding has succeeded in photo- 
graphing his characters so clearly that after 
the lapse of a century and a half they seem real 
and living. This does not mean that we ad- 
mire them all. The hero himself is not en- 
titled to unequivocal admiration. He sows 
wild oats too generously to serve as a model ; 
and his repentance, however sincere, comes 
too close on the promise of his reward. But, 
as Henry Morley says, the book breathes 
health. The convention of the time did not 
forbid a direct picturing of its evil; and the 
scenes good and bad are always given for what 
they are, and with no false gloss upon them. 
Vice is not made ethically triumphant over 
virtue; while the whole texture of thought 
and action is imbued with the charm of 
genius. 

AMELIA 

In point of general excellence, " Amelia " is 
generally considered inferior to " Tom Jones," 
yet it presents pictures of domestic life which 
make it highly valuable on its own account. 
It is also morally stronger than its predecessor. 
The prodigal Captain Booth is a better man 
than the erratic Tom Jones. Traits in each of 



The Novelist 19 

them lead us to suspect that they are pat- 
terned to an extent after Fielding himself. 
There is little doubt but that the author had 
his own wife in mind when he drew the por- 
trait of Amelia. " To have invented that char- 
acter," says Thackeray, " is not only a triumph 
of art but it is a good action. They say that 
it was in his own house that Fielding knew her 
and loved her ; and from his own wife he drew 
the most charming character in English fiction. 
—Fiction ! Why fiction ! why not history ? 
I know Amelia just as well as Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu." 

" Of all his novels," says E. P. Whipple, 
" ' Amelia ' leaves the finest impression of quiet 
domestic delight, of the sweet home feeling, 
and the humanities connected with it. . . . 
Amelia herself, the wife and mother, arrayed 
in all matronly graces, with her rosy children 
about her, is a picture of womanly gentleness 
and beauty, and unostentatious heroism, such 
as never leaves the imagination in which it 
has once found a place." 




20 Henry Fielding 



V. Miscellaneous Writings 



A! SURVEY of the work of Fielding 
would be incomplete without men- 
tion of his poems and miscellaneous 
writings. One of his earliest pub- 
lished works was a versified adap- 
tation into English of part of Juvenal's sixth 
satire — a broad satire in octosyllabic lines 
aimed ostensibly at some of the evils of society 
in Fielding's own time. In the first volume 
of his " Miscellanies " was printed a collec- 
tion of love poems, which their author de- 
clared to be " Productions of the Heart 
rather than of the Head." It was published 
in 1743, the year in which appeared " The 
Journey from this World to the Next," a 
witty satire culminating, in the narrative, with 
the author's entrance into Elysium. This 
book lacks coherence, but is enlivened by some 
amusing passages. 

Mention has already been made of Fielding's 
contributions to the " Champion." These es- 
says form a rich collection of current comment, 
comprising enough material in themselves for 
a good-sized volume. His essay writing was 
not limited to this periodical, but also found 
expression in the " True Patient," the " Jacob- 
ites' Journal," and the " Covent Garden Jour- 
nal." All this scattered material has now been 
pretty definitely identified by scholars. 

In the legal field this indefatigable man like- 
wise left his impress. His magistracy resulted 
in the writing up of some of his most interest- 




FRONT OF THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET. 




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SHARPHAM HOUSE, 
Fielding's Birthplace. 



Miscellaneous Writings 21 

ing cases, such as that of " Elizabeth Can- 
ning " and that of " Bosavern Penlez"; and 
also a clear-cut " Enquiry into the Causes of 
the late Increase of Robbers," which was dedi- 
cated to the Lord High Chancellor, Lord Hard- 
wicke, by whom, as well as by more recent 
legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. 

In 1743 appeared the three volumes of " Mis- 
cellanies," the first of which included a lengthy 
preface, Fielding's poems, and essays " On 
Conversation," " On the Knowledge of the 
Character of Men," and " On Nothing." The 
second volume included the " Journey from 
this World to the Next " and two of his plays. 
The third volume was wholly occupied with 
" Jonathan Wild." 

Ten years later Fielding began his "Journal 
of a Voyage to Lisbon." To that city he had 
gone in quest of health, and there it was he 
died. The story of the closing months of his 
life as related by himself is " one of the most 
unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own 
or any other literature." Here we obtain a 
final glimpse of the man, and by far the best. 
We see him a sufferer, a wanderer, and a 
courteous gentleman. If any portrait of him 
is to be handed down to history, let it be the 
last rather than the first; not the Fielding of 
the green-room and the tavern, but he of 
maturer and sedate years — the tender husband 
and father, the kindly host of his poorer 
friends, the chivalrous and patient wanderer 
in a " Voyage to Lisbon." 

Note.— For a complete list of Fielding's Writings see 
pages 30 to 32. 



ii i, MI B <M a^ BigMia jj ai ji Mi ^ B MBiaMaaiaM 



22 Henry Fielding* 



VI. Friends and Contemporaries 



SINGULARLY enough, the one name 
indissolubly connected with Fielding 
is not that of a friend; for Richard- 
son never understood his rival 
novelist, and never forgave him for 
his parodies. But the two names have come 
to be closely welded as the chiefest novelists 
of the time, and their work standing at oppo- 
site goals has jointly established the bounds of 
succeeding fiction. 

Nor could the literary dictator, Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, be called a friend of Fielding's; he 
was too strong an adherent of Richardson's 
for that. And although the Doctor read at 
least one of Fielding's books through with- 
out stopping, he could never be induced to do 
more than studiously find fault with them. 

Fielding paid more than one tribute to the 
abilities of Alexander Pope both as trans- 
lator of the " Iliad," and as author of the 
" Essay on Man," but some doubt exists as to 
their personal relations. For a time they ap- 
pear to have been more hostile than friendly. 

Thomas Gray, the poet, was not in sympathy 
with Fielding's method. He wrote a cold crit- 
ique of "Joseph Andrews," but at the same 
time could discern the power of the pen which 
produced it. 

Smollett, Colley Cibber, and Sir Robert Wal- 
pole were among others who waged war 



Friends and Contemporaries 23 

against him. Smollett's took the form of per- 
sonal rancor, aroused because of Fielding's 
criticisms of " Roderick Random " and " Pere- 
grime Pickle," and found vent in a coarse, 
abusive pamphlet full of brutal strictures. 
Cibber was put upon the defensive by certain 
bantering personalities aimed at him in the 
" Champion," and to which he replied by his 
famous " Apology." Why Cibber and Fielding 
grew apart is not known, for in the latter's 
eariy days the actor had helped him greatly. 
Walpole's malice was called forth by Fielding's 
covert satires on his administration. 

Andrew Millar, the book-publisher and 
seller, proved a serviceable friend to Fielding. 
Millar, it may be remembered, was the pub- 
lisher of Johnson's Dictionary. He brought 
out Fielding's works with considerable suc- 
cess. Horace Walpole writes : " Millar, the 
bookseller, has done very generously by him; 
finding Tom Jones, for which he had given 
him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he 
has given him another hundred." 

William Hogarth drew one of the best por- 
traits of Fielding (the one included in the 
present booklet). A friendship and admira- 
tion seem always to have been maintained be- 
tween the two men. Fielding spoke in high- 
est terms of both the drawings and the writ- 
ings of Hogarth, and the latter acknowledged 
the compliment by kindly references in his 
turn. 

A friend of very great value to Fielding 
was George, Lord Lyttelton, whom he first 
met in his schoolboy days at Eton. Lyttel- 



24 Henry Fielding- 

ton manifested lively interest in his friend 
throughout his life; and there is even a hint 
that he helped him out of financial straits. 
" Tom Jones " was dedicated to him, and the 
author says : " Without your assistance this 
History had never been completed." 

We have already spoken of the stage friends 
of Fielding — Garrick, Mrs. Oldfield, and Mrs. 
Clive. And mention must be made of his 
distinguished second-cousin, Lady Mary Wort- 
ley Montagu, whose prominence and influence 
aided him greatly in his early years. She 
gave him excellent assistance in perusing and 
criticizing his plays, and left a definite im- 
press upon his character and writings. An- 
other kinswoman who influenced his early 
London life was Miss Sarah Andrew with 
whom he fell desperately in love. He would 
have eloped with her, it is said, had she not 
been removed beyond his reach. Her image, 
however, was never effaced from his memory; 
and it is believed that she is pictured in the 
lovely portrait of Sophia Western, in " Tom 
Jones." 

Sarah Jennings, first Duchess of Marl- 
borough, and wife of the famous military com- 
mander, was noted for the acidity of her 
tongue no less than for her mental attain- 
ments. Her frequent broils with statesmen 
led to an attack upon her in a current maga- 
zine, which was attributed to Johnson, and 
which Fielding characterized as scurrilous. He 
replied in a " Vindication." But as to his 
personal relations with the dowager or her 
friendship for him, we can only surmise. 



Friends and Contemporaries 25 

Ralph Allen, a country gentleman, renowned 
for his lavish hospitality, was a loyal friend 
to Fielding, who dedicated " Amelia " to him. 
Upon the author's death, Allen saw to the edu- 
cation of his children, and settled an hundred 
pounds a year upon them. 

In conclusion, Fielding's relations with his 
contemporaries were like those with literature. 
Throughout he was open and courageous — 
giving of himself generously, yet fearless in 
attack. His fights, moreover, were in the open 
light of day and tinctured by no mean re- 
venge. To his friends he was unwaveringly 
true. Says Lowell : — 

"Did he good service? God must judge, not 
we. 
Manly he was ; and generous and sincere ; 
English in all, of genius blithely free; 
Who loves a Man may see his image here." 



$£ 



26 Henry Fielding 

THE NEED OF 
A Complete Edition of Fielding 



"The real monument which Fielding's mem- 
ory most needs is one that does not ask for the 
chisel of any sculptor or the voice of any ora- 
tor. It is, moreover, a memorial which would 
neither be difficult to raise nor pecuniarily un- 
profitable. This memorial is a complete edi- 
tion of his writings. Though one hundred and 
thirty years have gone by since his death, this 
act of justice to his reputation has never yet 
been performed. Apparently, it has never 
once been contemplated. A portion of his 
work — and, in a certain way, of work especially 
characteristic — is practically inaccessible to the 
immense majority of English-speaking men. 
We are the losers by this neglect more than he. 
The mystery which envelops much of Field- 
ing's career can never be cleared away, the es- 
timate of his character and conduct can never 
be satisfactorily fixed, until everything he 
wrote has been put into the hands of indepen- 
dent investigators pursuing separate lines of 
study." — Thomas R. Lounsbury, LL.D., Yale 
College. 



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WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, LL.D., 
Editor of the New Fielding. 



Complete Works 2J 

THE COMPLETE WRITINGS OF 

Henry Fielding, Esq- 

Comprising the unexpurgated text of 

His Novels, Plays, Poems and Miscellaneous 
Writings. 



A FINAL AND DEFINITIVE EDITION 

With an Essay on the Life, Genius and 
Achievement of the Author, by 

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, LL.D. 



COMPLETE IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES. 




ESSRS. Croscup & Sterling Com- 
pany have great pleasure in an- 
nouncing the immediate publication 
of the COMPLETE WRITINGS 
OF HENRY FIELDING thus sup- 
plying for the first time the literary 
urgency as stated by Professor Lounsbury. 

To this end, and to provide at once and for 
all time a definitive edition, every known source 
in Great Britain, the continent and America 
has been searched by the aid of experts for the 
remains of Henry Fielding, the greatest and 
most characteristic of English novelists of the 
eighteenth century. 

Most people know Fielding as merely a 
novelist. Yet in addition to his four great 
novels, he wrote twenty-five plays, some of 
which held the stage in their day. He pleaded 
at the bar, and wrote political articles and 
pamphlets of considerable power. He is the 
greatest figure of the eighteenth century in 
England among imaginative writers. 



28 Henry Fielding 

The editorship has been undertaken by Mr. 
William Ernest Henley, who will contribute to 
the final volume an essay an the Life, Genius 
and Achievement of the Author. 



CONTENTS. 

The edition of Fielding here presented will 
be carefully collated throughout with the earli- 
est and most approved text. 

As for Commentary, neither expense nor 
pains has been spared in the effort to bring 
together in this work every possible aid for 
an intelligent understanding of the personality 
of the great author, his writings and his times. 

To this end, in addition to the literary work 
of the editor, the rights to the valuable intro- 
duction and illustrative notes by Mr. Austin 
Dobson to A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 
have been purchased from the English pub- 
lishers, and will be included. 

A valuable paper on The Descent of Field- 
ing , illustrated with the authentic Fielding 
arms, will be specially contributed by Mr. A. 
C. Fox-Davies, the eminent English geneal- 
ogist, and editor of "The Genealogical Maga- 
zine." 

A complete Bibliography of the First Edi- 
tions of Fielding's writings will also be in- 
cluded, being the -first systematic attempt of 
the kind; and for the special interest of the 
general reader there will be prefixed to each 
of the novels a List of ihe Characters appear- 
ing in the story. 

And for the text nothing in existence which 
this prolific writer produced will be omitted 
from this unique edition, which will vindicate 
for all time Fielding's reputation not only as a 
novelist, but as an earnest practical lawyer and 
publicist. 



Complete Works 29 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Fielding is an author whom artists have 
loved to illustrate, and the best line artists of 
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 
vied with each other in producing pictorially his 
fine and clear-cut types of English character. 
The great caricaturist Rowlandson is naturally 
in his element as illustrator to the creator oi 
Square the Philosopher, Thwackum, and Part- 
ridge. But the genre painter Corbould, the 
classic Stothard, Borel, Hulett, Rooker, Ho- 
garth, and others also found congenial work in 
lighting up to the eye, what Fielding presented 
to the understanding. 

In addition to these illustrations every possi- 
ble print and engraving illustrative of scenes 
in the great writer's life has been reproduced. 

The engraved titles will be the facsimile of a 
design by Corbould, and the lettering is taken 
from one of the earliest editions. 

Thus everything worthy of pictorial perpet-> 
uation has been here reproduced, making this 
edition in text and illustrations a final and 
complete collection of all that now exists of 
Fielding. 

MANUFACTURE. 

The work will be printed from a clear open- 
face type, upon beautiful paper of special make, 
with watermark, and the presentment of the 
volumes will in every respect be worthy of this 
great classic. 

Full descriptive circulars with sample pages 
and illustration will be forwarded free of 
charge to any address. 

Croscup & Sterling Company, 135 Fifth 
Avenue, New York. 



30 Henry Fielding 

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Synopsis of Contents 

(i) NOVELS, 7 vols. 

VOLUME I. 

The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. 

volume 2. 
Jonathan Wild. 
A Journey from this World to the Next. 

volume 3. 
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, I. 

volume 4. 
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, II. 

volume 5. 
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, III. 

volume 6. 
Amelia, I. 

VOLUME 7. 

Amelia, II. 

(2) PLAYS AND POEMS, 5 vols. 

VOLUME 8. 

Love in Several Masques. 

The Temple Beau. 

The Author's Farce; with a Puppet Show 
Called The Pleasures of the Town. 

The Lottery. 

volume 9. 

The Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, The Life and 
Death of Tom Thumb, the Great. 

The Coffee-House Politicians; or, the Jus- 
tice Caught in His Own Trap. 

The Letter- Writers ; or, A New Way to 
Keep a Wife at Home. 

The Grub-Street Opera. 

The Debauchees; or, The Jesuit Caught. 



Complete Works 31 



VOLUME 10. 

The Modern Husband. 

The Covent Garden Tragedy. 

The Mock Doctor; or, The Dumb Lady 
Cured. 

The Miser. 

The Intriguing Chambermaid. 

The Old Man Taught Wisdom ; or, The Vir- 
gin Unmasked. 

volume 11. 

Don Quixote in England. 

The Universal Gallant; or, The Different 

Husbands. 
Pasquin; a Dramatic Satire on the Times. 
The Historical Register for the Year 1736. 
Eurydice. 
Eurydice Hissed; or, A Word to the Wise. 

VOLUME 12. 

Tumbledown Dick; or, Phaeton in the 

Suds. 
Miss Lucy in Town. 
The Wedding Day. 

The Fathers; or, The Good-Natured Man. 
Introduction to Miscellanies and Poems 

(1743). 
Poems. 

(3) LEGAL WRITINGS, 1 vol. 

VOLUME 13. 

An Inquiry into the Causes of the Late 
Increase of Robbers, etc. 

A Proposal for Making an Effectual Pro- 
vision for the Poor. 

A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury, 
June 29TH, 1749. 

A Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth 
Canning. 

A True State of the Case of Bosavern 
Penlez. 



32 Henry Fielding: 

(4) MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 
3 vols. 

VOLUME 14. 

The True Patriot. 
The Jacobites Journal. 
The Covent Garden Journal. 
An Essay on Conversation. 
An Essay on the Knowledge of the Char- 
acters of Men. 
An Essay on Nothing. 
The Opposition; A Vision. 

volume 15. 

A Full Vindication of the Duchess Dow- 
ager of Marlborough. 
The Vernoniad. 
Philosophical Transactions for the Year 

1742-43. 
Articles in the Champion. 

volume 16. 

An Essay on the Life, Genius and Achieve- 
ment of the Author, by W. E. Henley. 

The Descent of Henry Fielding, by A. C. Fox- 
Davies. 

Bibliography of the First Editions of Fielding's 
Writings. 

Preface to David Simple. 

Preface to Familiar Letters. 

Dedication and Preface to Plutus; A 
Comedy. 

The First Olynthiac of Demosthenes. 

A Dialogue Between Jupiter, Juno, Apollo 
and Mercury. 

Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss 
of our Friends. 

Examples of the Interposition of Provi- 
dence. 

A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon; with in- 
troduction and notes by Austin Dobson. 

A Fragment of a Comment on Lord Boling- 
brooke's Essays. 



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